


none of us are going back

by buckstiel



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bad movies, Early Season 4, M/M, Pining, The Spiral, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckstiel/pseuds/buckstiel
Summary: In the midst of Peter's imposed isolation after The Unknowing, Martin finds himself thrown into a decade-old afternoon beside a college-aged Jonathan Sims.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Peter Lukas, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, past Georgie Barker/Jonathan Sims - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 170





	none of us are going back

**Author's Note:**

> i am only through ep126 but i am compelled to write fic. so here i am. i had to follow the urge while it was in my face or else it may never have had anything come to fruition. so forgive the lore inaccuracies. 
> 
> [holds up martin and jon] i just think they're neat!!
> 
> unbeta'd. title from "snow and dirty rain" by richard siken

Whenever Peter turned to leave, Martin strained to sense if any of the hazy crackle left on the tapes hovered in the air around them, if there was something ebbing as he was being left alone. He never could. He wasn’t attuned to it, probably, if it existed at all. And it was times like that when he would think of Jon, a sharp twist behind his breastbone rising to the bottom of his throat.

Jon could see everything, if Martin understood the ways of The Eye correctly. Then again, if Jon were there, much of the issue at hand wouldn’t have been such an issue at all.

Still, in those moments he focused, almost meditative after a while, as if seeking out something only Jon could see could blot out the gap Peter was so keen to keep between them.

Weeks passed like this, unremarkable, until Peter’s departure caught a snag--his foot paused on the threshold of however he left these encounters. “Have you ever listened to the recordings Jon made when he first took over for Gertrude?” They locked eyes over their shoulders, and even in his jovial tone, an edge in Peter sharpened. “He thought very lowly of you. Hard to say if that’s changed… I mean, I’m not Elias after all, but your loyalty seems un--”

“Goodbye, Peter.” Martin turned back to his files, and the room was once again quiet.

He tried to ignore what Peter had said, but the words permeated through his skin and into someplace deeper, to the point where every time he chewed at the inside of his cheek in thought, his saliva panged his tongue with a bitter, acrid taste. Like earth coated in grime and loaded with heavy metals ready to coax his cells into tumors. He rinsed his mouth out with a swig of tap water, then whole cups of it; and finally, when that failed to scrape it free, with an large can of some ungodly American import of sickly-sweet cold tea from the vending machine. Strawberry-kiwi flavored, it claimed. He could barely taste it over the earthiness settling across the whole of his mouth.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t known that was true, on some level, how Jon felt about him then. Through the Archives, on the way to meetings or artifact storage or to the breakroom to reheat leftover takeaway, Jon had maneuvered with a sort of baseline surliness that spiked whenever he caught Martin intersecting his path. Barely-suppressed grumbles had burst free when Martin would trip over his own feet or spill something on some memo from Elias--it honestly felt comical now, thinking of how Jon was before Jane Prentiss had slithered into their everyday conversation. What did Jon have to be so grumpy about before the worms?

_You, clearly_ , said a voice in Martin’s head that sounded suspiciously like Peter; much like the taste in his mouth, he couldn’t manage to wave it away.

“You don’t turn that… _deeply_ crabby like--as a person, just because of one coworker,” he said to the manila folder in his hands. The edges were bent into the shape of his grip. “That’s ridiculous. Peter’s just toying with me.” He sneaked a glance over his shoulder, then to the clock on the wall.

Ten til five--close enough to call it a day.

He was halfway to autopilot by the time he swung on his knapsack and grabbed the doorknob to the office hall, a powerful internal force to reel back--it propelled him forward a good ten steps into a bright London summer afternoon, sun blazing over pockets of students lounging in a park across the street from a multiplex.

Surely by now, Martin had learned better than to be surprised by inexplicable events. Or so he’d thought. The first thing out of his mouth was, “This isn’t the hallway,” so he could only assume he needed a few more lessons.

Off to the side was an empty bench, away from the flows of pedestrians coming at him from all sides, and he slid himself toward it quickly. Thankfully, it was under a good patch of shade from one of the park’s taller trees, enough that the familiar prickle of a sun-sneeze faded and let him get his bearings.

The door he’d arrived through was nowhere to be seen in the moving crowds, not even a shadow of it or strange imprint upon the air. The time of day and season did not align with the wintry late-afternoon he’d left. And gauging from the marquee of the nearby movie theater, enticing passersby with the likes of _Iron Man_ and _Speed Racer,_ he was no longer in the right year, off-kilter by more than a decade.

Finding a good spot to place the blame was easy enough--wasn’t this sort of thing the hallmark of The Spiral? Making people think they’ve lost their marbles? “Nice try,” he muttered to himself, pulling off his jacket and stuffing it in his bag. The cover of the Anne Carson collection bent under his hasty hands, and in any other situation, he would’ve cared _very_ much. “I am aware of what you’re up to, Mich--uh, Helen. Whatever you’re calling yourself.”

Even without the jacket, he was growing overheated. The woolen sweater he’d chosen that morning was perfect for a dreary February, but if weave of it didn’t let him push up the sleeves--

“I thought Helen was supposed to be nicer than Michael,” he said, sighing.

At some point, the other end of the bench had taken up another occupant: a middle-aged woman absently playing solitaire on her iPod while she dug the tip of her shoe heel into a divot in the concrete.

“Apologies for talking to myself,” he said with a sideways glance her way. “It’s just been a bit of a day. You know how it is.”

She didn’t look up from the game--which, fine. Big city smalltalk was more miss than hit, a fact he’d learned quickly after moving from Devonshire.

Ordinarily, he’d leave it at that, but-- “I don’t mean to bother you again, but would you mind telling me the, uh… the date? With the year? I’m not--I’ve had a… um, head injury, see…” He trailed off when she still didn’t give any indication that she’d noticed him. “Excuse me…?”

Slowly he reached out to tap her shoulder. Nothing. Pulling back a bit, he glanced around, and then jostled her shoulder, first lightly and then with a little more force. The rest of her body swayed accordingly, but he might as well have not made any contact at all. A tight coil of panic was starting to build in his gut, and after a cursory sweep of their surroundings, Martin stood up in front of the woman and spread his hands between her and the iPod screen. Took each of her shoulders and shook her harder. And finally, long after the sweat pooling at the small of his back had shifted to the nervous sort, he pressed both hands against her cheeks until her mouth made the fish-like _O_ , and then his shouting didn’t even disturb the flock of pigeons collected at the street corner.

So Helen didn’t laugh in her victims’ faces like Michael had. That certainly didn’t make her _nicer_.

Exhausted, Martin fell back onto the bench. He was just going to become another dead end statement left to collect dust in the Archives, wouldn’t he? Peter would arrive at the Institute one morning in a few weeks lamenting how he’d lost track of him that afternoon, how he hadn’t heard anything close to a peep until he’d come across some news article from late 2008 with a fuzzy impression of Martin’s current-day profile in the background of the lead photo. Jon would pull everything from him, probably, using that power of his to hold Peter’s tongue between his fingers until it bled all the weird secrets and plans he’d been keeping.

Perhaps this fate wasn’t so bad after all, then, if it could force them into communicating. Martin hadn’t truly believed Peter when he said Jon couldn’t factor into his equation.

His thoughts drifted over to the various takes on time travel and its consequences he’d encountered in his life just as a burst of people emerged from the multiplex. Most of them eventually drifted to the bus stops around the corner or the nearby entrance to the tube, but one couple jaywalked to the park in a run, cutting it close with a taxi. Their laughter cut through the cab’s horn like a knife through paper.

“What a nightmare--”

Wait. He knew that voice. Vaguely, but--

“Oh, come on, you can’t say it wasn’t fun, at least--”

Martin whipped around so hard that the muscles in his neck strained not to pull something. His eyes landed on them immediately--on the greenest patch of grass in the whole park, near a patch of bright yellow buttercups freshly sprouted, were Georgie Barker and Jonathan Sims, out of breath and gleaming. Barely recognizable and all at once familiar in the same moment.

“Oh god,” Martin murmured. “Am I being Christmas Caroled?”

He shook his head to dispel the thought--or try to--and tiptoed into the park, knapsack clasped to his chest, until he was a respectable distance away from where Georgie and Jon sat, while still being close enough to hear them. Georgie hadn’t changed much, from what he’s seen, aside from her hair; these days she kept it natural and close shaven, and here she donned an intricate, tight set of braids that brushed the back collar of her shirt.

“Shia LaBeouf isn’t believable as Indy’s son!” she said, her smile nearly splitting her face open.

And there was Jon, hand covering his eyes in disbelief as he tossed his laughter toward the sun. He leaned back into the grass, balanced on an elbow, the dark bronze of his skin glowing, unmarred by the supernatural wriggling into his life. His hair, unstreaked by gray, was shorter but still a bit shaggy, though one side was shorn into an undercut. “Is that your primary issue with the movie? The casting?”

Martin had never seen any of the _Indiana Jones_ films, much less the latest installment they were discussing, so he didn’t try to follow their conversation in detail, just the shades and tints of it. How Georgie would make a wry comment and Jon would fiddle with the silver hoop in his eyebrow, how they’d both make the same point at the same time and they’d point at each other, talking over each other, and only then did Martin notice the dark green polish chipped along Jon’s nails.

All the while, Jon’s grin never tilted into the bitter or ironic. The angles were the same, the curves of his lips, but something was missing-- the layered years exerting that inescapable pressure, something he held that hadn’t yet been scooped out.

“I’d really love to read up on--you know, the behind-the-scenes stuff,” Jon said. They started to gather their belongings, clear the bits of grass from their clothes, and Martin jumped up hastily to follow them. “It’s got to be wild. Apparently at the end of it all, Harrison Ford didn’t even know who Cate Blanchett _was_ \--”

“She played the main villain!”

“I know! Exactly!”

They strode off away from the park, down one of the branching streets with a number of hole-in-the-wall restaurants and odd boutiques. There were enough other people that Martin could have hidden himself well in normal circumstances, but he stayed close to keep up with their conversation, as it had shifted away from _Indiana Jones_ at long last. He tried not to stare at their hands, how their fingers wove together and the careful arc Jon’s thumb traveled across Georgie’s knuckles.

“If you’re going to be a field archaeologist,” Georgie said, “shouldn’t you get over your fear of snakes?”

“I don’t think that’s how that works. And besides, there are plenty of places you could be an archaeologist without encountering snakes,” Jon said.

“Indy’s always in tropical climates, though. Shouldn’t he--”

“What, don’t you have an irrational fear?” Jon let go of her hand and stepped in front of her, walking in step backwards along the sidewalk. His grin was crooked and the sun overhead cast everything in an aching glow. “Everyone’s got something odd eating at them.”

“Not everyone,” Georgie said with a wry grin. “At least, not me.”

“Well, pardon me, Miss Rational.” Jon returned to her side, opting to hold both of his hands in the Vulcan salute instead of taking her hand. “We all can’t be as--”

“You don’t even like Star Trek!”

Martin let himself enjoy the spectacle, Jon making a fool of himself turning the iconic hand sign into something closer to clacking crab claws, fighting back hysterics as Georgie gave him more and more grief, more material to draw forth that specific blend of benevolent ire welcome between close friends and lovers.

They were still laughing at some tenuous joke Jon had made about Vulcans and seafood when Martin sidestepped another pedestrian walking toward him, sighed in the way one did when no one was listening. “Oh Jon,” he said. “What happened to you?”

And Jon stopped.

Georgie paused, a hand on his forearm tugging him back along. “What is it?”

“Nothing, nevermind.”

The sun had tilted closer to evening, an acceptable dinner hour, and Jon and Georgie placed themselves at the end of a line leading into a restaurant--some new Ethiopian place with limited seating but injera to die for, and they were willing to wait. The theater popcorn could hold them over, and this was the last weekend before finals, and who could spare the time to stand in line when that was breathing down their necks?

“Your contemporary lit class has a final paper _and_ an exam?” Jon said. “That’s brutal.”

“Rather that than an oral.”

“It’s a conversational language class, what else would it be?”

“You keep me up talking to yourself!”

And so it went. He stood in the line behind them without any trouble; the group at his own back never stepped through him, as he almost expected them to. As far as anyone was aware, the large gap between Georgie and Jon and a supposed acapella group was just a quirk, a happenstance. It didn’t have to mean anything.

Hours had passed, and Martin hadn’t considered how he was going to jump forward eleven years to his own time or untangle the forces that kept him here. He’d been ready to follow this couple into a restaurant, a flat, on toward the breakup he knew they’d have in time, before any of them stepped into the Magnus Institute.

Before him was Jonathan Sims, young and carefree, and how could he care about anything else?

“What am I supposed to do?” Martin said, under his breath, and he watched Jon’s face for a reaction. There wasn’t much--Georgie had gone into an impression of some sketch from Saturday Night Live, and of course his attention had been redirected.

The line ahead of them for the restaurant shortened. The laughter shared between Jon and Georgie was sharper but more secretive, shared in whispers; and Martin was ready to rip apart at the seams.

“You don’t know the answers, not now,” Martin said, his head hovering over Jon’s shoulder, just beside his ear. “But I’m stuck. You save us time and time again, in the future, and right now--Jon, I’m so scared.” His voice shook, and he let it. What point was there to hiding his fear? “Being trapped in 2008 is frightening enough, but…”

He watched as Jon pressed a kiss to Georgie’s jawline, how she smiled into it. “I don’t know what Peter Lukas is planning. He won’t tell me everything, but I’m wrapped up too far in it to back out now, and I agreed to it before it was common sense to assume you’d make it through the coma. I… I missed you so much, Jon. It hurt. My bones ached with it, but there wasn’t anyone I could tell.”

Martin wasn’t new to the concept of time travel; he knew there was a chance of multiple timelines, of his actions rippling into a future that wasn’t his to return to. And he was also so keenly aware of the woman in the park who, at no possible level, could take notice of him. So what could he do with his caution but throw it to the wind?

“I don’t know if I ought to be involved with whatever Peter’s planning. In retrospect it’s probably another ritual. It seemed like the right decision before you woke up. Now… god, Jon, I don’t want to be so alone, but Peter…” He sighed, and he thought he saw Jon hesitate.

The hesitation caught his heart, made it skip and shudder in his chest. “I know you can’t hear me,” he said. That was how it worked in _A Christmas Carol_ , and Helen was the ghost of every era. Playing a cruel joke the way The Spiral did. “But I want to tell you while I can--” Martin’s fists balled up at his sides, shaking in their determination. “You said you feared not being human, but it matters less what you are than _who_. You can be inhuman and still be yourself, and that’s--Jon, that’s who I love.” Martin took a breath, shuddering into his lungs. “That’s who I’m in love with.”

Ahead of him, Jon and Georgie had settled into an argument over some bit of _Indiana Jones_ lore from the earlier installments, making faces at each other with every new attempt at proving their point.

They were at the front of the line by now, the maitre d’ at the podium eyeing the status of the tables inside.

“I just…” Martin sighed. His arm shot forward and landed on Jon’s shoulder in a tight hold in hopes of spinning him around. “If nothing else, I want you to know that--through it all, you’re going to be all right.”

Jon did spin around, did look down at his shoulder where Martin’s grip still held, did searchingly gaze around the space where Martin stood, looking for something that, for once, he couldn’t see.

Martin grasped his shoulder harder. “I _love you_. Please remember that when Peter’s keeping me away. Jon--”

“What’s wrong?” Georgie said, clasping both hands at Jon’s elbow.

“It’s…” he sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe it’ll make sense later.”

“You do think better on a full stomach.”

“That I do--”

Martin spun on his heel, stepping out of the restaurant line--and into the hallway outside of Peters’ rented space.

The clock on the wall read eight til five, and he could only hear the sound of his breathing in the stale atmosphere of the office. “Not a statement after all,” he muttered to himself. “That’s something.”

He thought of Jon--breathing and living, conscious, across the city. Unaware of the strings Peter had tied around Martin’s wrists. “I’m back, I’m back,” Martin said. His hands balled into fists, rotated in circles slowly at his sides. “And god, I hope you heard me.”


End file.
